A-Z of mental health
Information and advice on a huge range of mental health topics
Review day for the Work Capability Assessment
Posted Tuesday 23 November 2010
Today Professor Harrington is releasing the report from his Independent Review of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). As many readers know, the WCA is the new test which determines what kind of employment benefit a claimant can receive. This is a key issue for Mind and we have had substantial involvement in this review. We are delighted that so many of the issues that we raised have been recognised in Professor Harrington’s recommendations for reforming the WCA.
Our Chief Executive, Paul Farmer, sat on the Scrutiny Panel and we submitted two documents to the review – one based on the thoughtful input of our supporters. Taken together, these meant we could ensure that Professor Harrington and his team were looking at the right areas and coming to fair conclusions, based on the submissions of charities, organisations and individuals.
The result of this extensive input is a report which identifies a whole raft of problems with the current WCA process and makes important recommendations for how these issues might be resolved:
- More empathetic and regular communication with applicants
- Personalised justifications from Atos assessors for their decisions
- Mental and cognitive experts in every assessment centre to spread knowledge and good practice
- More independence for the DWP staff who are supposed to make the final decision on eligibility for ESA
- Greater use of further medical evidence alongside the assessment
- More feedback from the Tribunals service to the DWP and Atos
The report also mentions work that Mind is undertaking with Mencap and the National Autistic Society to come up with proposed amendments to the criteria used for assessing the impact of mental health problems, autism and learning disabilities. This is a project that Professor Harrington recently asked us to work on and we are in the process of coming up with some short term proposals for improvement, although we are still committed to calling for fundamental changes to the assessment.
Although there are some areas where we think the report has not gone far enough – such as making the collection of additional medical evidence routine practice – we are generally pleased with the outcome of the Review. If these changes are fully implemented, and our proposed amendments to the assessment are adopted, then we believe the WCA process will be greatly improved for people with mental health problems.
From the levels of criticism of the current process in the report and the extent of the recommendations, it is clear that the WCA as it stands is deeply flawed. From April next year, people currently claiming other incapacity benefits (IB) will be transferred to the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) via the WCA. We believe that this should not take place until the recommendations from this review have been fully implemented and the impact has been evaluated: In short, not until the assessment is working fairly and effectively. We are also concerned that the recently announced one year time-limit on contributory-based ESA will undermine the system and should be reversed.
I would like to thank you all for your vital input that has helped produce this important report. Now that it’s in, we need to ensure its recommendations are implemented. Please contact your MP to tell them three things:
- That the Review needs to be fully implemented
- That the migration of IB claimants should not take place until the WCA is working fairly and effectively
- That those claiming ESA on a contributory basis should not have their claim time-limited
In the meantime, we’ll be sending out briefings and trying to get our message across in the media, but MPs need to hear from their own constituents how vital these changes are.
Go to our take action page to find out more.
Tom Pollard, Mind Policy and Campaigns Officer
37 Comments
-
This is more encouraging thank you. The WCA assessment descriptors certainly do not relate to mental health issues as it currently stands, it seems more appropriate to severe learning disability.
I would agree that the assessment should be rewritten before it is undertaken and specialist evidence from mental health professionals should not be ignored as it currently is. It shouldn't be a foregone conclusion that everyone has to 'fail' and get it back on appeals which take many months, this shows the decisions in the first place have been at fault.
There should also be a few mental health and learning disability exemptions based on length of history and other descriptors - we need to get real here about the fact that some people will not be able to work no matter what sanctions are in place.
Would certainly agree that nothing should be time limited neither - this needs to include people doing a few hours work to part-time work - this isn't a realistic outcome unless the benefits they can keep [so their income is liveable] is without limit. Again, we need to get real about the fact that some people will only ever be able to work a few hours or part-time at the very most and they shouldn't be forced into full-time work by the 'tapering' i.e. removal of the benefits they can keep after a few months, as this would penalise single people especially. Lastly, can we please stop penalising voluntary work, it's ridiculous that some service users have had their benefits cut because the JobCentre has found out they do some voluntary work, yet the proposed mandatory picking up litter is OK but chosen voluntary work is not?
Again, getting real, for some people remaining on benefits doing voluntary work needs to be an outcome for some which the charities including Mind need to fight for along with the above, and along with full-time workers having more support. The middle ground has to be expanded without time limits or sanctions. -
I have just read briefly through the report and having been a chronic sufferer of anxiety and depression for over 30 years, I am pleased to see that the input from Mind and indeed the other mental health groups, has resulted in some positive out comes for people with mental health problems. I was particularly interested to hear of the continued involvement of Mind in the review of the mental health descriptors.
The major positive outcome in addition to the above, was the recommendation for the pilot recording of medical assessments. Far too often the imposition of Atos impossible terms for claimants wishing to record medical assessments was grossly unfair. It gave rise to suspicion and the impression that the medical assessors had something to hide and regrettably knowing they couldn't be held directly to account, these suspicions were well-founded when the medical reports bore no relation as to what was said during the course of the assessment.
I fundamentally disagree however, with the notion that there should be telephone contact between a claimant and a DWP decision maker. Having been a decision maker within the Department for many years, there was a tendency to dissuade a claimant from lodging an appeal over the telephone as the calls were never recorded, and not always for the right reasons.
I believe that particularly in the case of people with mental health problems, any unsuspecting claimant may feel pressurised into not appealing an adverse decision, at the behest of the decision maker . A claimant/appellant should be at ease to consider an appeal, based upon the written evidence and with appropriate (expert) advice that may be sought, without any official interference. I therefore deprecate the use of telephone contact under any circumstances in the situation as described.
-
I HAVE BEEN TOOK OFF EMPLOYMENT SUPPORT ALLOWANCE AND I HAVE APPEALED THIS.IN THE MEAN TIME I HAVE ZERO TO LIVE OFF.I HAVE BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES,I AM AT MY WITS END.I HAVE BEEN TO WELFARE RIGHTS AND I HAVE APPEALED THE DESICION.MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMNS ARE SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET,IN MY OPINION AND I AM SO GRATEFUL I HAVE FAITH IN A GOD AND I HAVE TURNED THIS OVER TO HIM/HER/WHATEVER FOR HELP.I REALLY DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO,I AM SCARED FOR ME,I MIGHT END UP HOMELESS,I AM SCARED FOR MY SON.WHAT CAN I DO ??
-
Bernadette
This is not really the right place to try to offer you advice BUT...
Have you seen if you are entitled to Disability Living Allowance? It isn't a quick fix I'm afraid, if it's worth you completing an application form it then takes quite a long time to hear back to find out if you are entitled to it. As I said, it wont help you straight away but might in the future. Good luck.x -
Chris Grayling stated on the news tonight that he’s not going to change what is happening other than to continue it in a nicer manner, so there you have it folks this review was a total waste of time, they are going to bulldoze ahead with these assessments but just ensure everyone is a bit nicer when they do it. Well the same thing being done with a smile is not going to help.
What are Mind going to do now? -
Bernadette hang in there I really can empathise, try to get a crisis loan at least to tied you over. As far as I am aware the law does or used to state that you need a minimum amount to live on. With housing if you have zero you should l be entitled to full Housing benefit unless they've bent the rules on that as well. As for ATOS I had dealings with them as Occupational Advisers and I only got 20 minutes then for reccommendations of reasonable adjustments DDA. When the mental health bit was being discussed the berk put he is not a danger to others on the report talk about prejudiced. You are in my thoughts and I'll say a prayer for you.
-
Bernadette - see a welfare adviser, for example at your nearest CAB. It is possible to claim ESA at the assessment rate whilst appealing.
In relation to Mind's future submissions in relation to WCA descriptors, I have three key pleas...
Firstly, please get the frequencies written out of the descriptors, so just the repeatedly and reliably factor is relevant. How many times a day etc. shouldn't be a separate factor, because it isn't for physical problems, they just rely on the repeatedly and reliably factor.
Secondly, please can we have a descriptor relating to mental distress?
Thirdly, could the exceptional criteria for the support group relating to the risk of harm be moved into the main descriptors, rather than being a separate factor? Alternatively, could it be included as an initial screening test? It shouldn't be an optional add-on that could easily be forgotten, isn't specifically covered by the Lima questions and isn't covered by the ESA50.
-
Sorry, I just can't take this anymore. Voluntary work, workfare who cares? its still work without pay. I wish the people involved in welfare reform could have my depression and have their income taken away and be vilified by the media. I tried to get a job BEFORE the recession, employers don't want you if you have a mental problem, why is this never addressed?, it is DISCRIMATION that would be illegal if it was happening to any other group in society. I am now under pressure to find a job ANY job as we would not cope if my benefits were stopped, and with a diagnosis of PERSONALITY DISORDER that is going be so easy isn't it? I have come to the conclusion that some of us are just born to be bullied; I've had it all my life, had my career destroyed, rejected by my family, feel lonely most of the time, paranoid that people just see the 'loony' and not the person I would like to be. All this is just another form of bullying and I can't take it any more-hate the mental health system, hate my personality, hate this country and the government I never voted for. The thought of more of this makes me want to dissappear but the thought of me going before my father stops me from doing anything, I will try and keep going but its getting harder and harder.
-
Harringtons review is not up to much.
BOOKETS ON HOW WORK IS GOOD FOR YOU TO BE ISSUED TO TRIBUNAL PANEL MEMBERS
The most important bit in my view is how tribunals are somehow viewed as biased for the client, so to stop that they are going to to give booklets to tribunal panel members on the benefits of work.What has that got to do with the ESA medical assessement appeal process other than propaghanda to influence panel members to take benefit off people especially the mentally ill..
That justs about sums it all, When is someone going to expose the truth about employers. If a miracle happened tomorrow and everybody was cured employers they will never employ the mentally ill in any substantial mumbers.
Personally MIND and other mental health charities should disclose how many seriously mentally ill people they employ in PAID POSIITIONS of over 16 hrs a week, not voluntary positions Voluntary positions mean is they will almost certainly lose their benefits at some stage under the CAN DO regime.
The NHS and DWP and all the other hypocrites should telll the truth as well about employment.
voluntary workNobody should be told to solely see see their Disability advisor, The employer of the volunteer has a moral duty not to use their volunteers when a detriment in respect of benefits may well incur for doing voluntary work. , MIND and all the other big charities are involved heavily in this welfare reform and know the risks to volunteers benefits,
Many of those volunteers will not make the tiny percentage put in the support group so will lose their ESA benefits within a year if they or their families have other income coming in. voluntary work will be used against them, its obvious.
Many others will be put straight onto JSA because they did voluntary work in my view. Look at the criteria for WCA and it is blatant, if you can do vol work you can work.
Paul
-
in countrys where workfare has been introduced - america, canada, austrlia, netherlands ect. it has been the sick and disabled who have suffered and been pushed into poverty.
under workfare you have no employment rights.
if a disabled person tries but fails to hold down a job who will they turn to for help will they be listened to.
mind i applaud your efforts to change the unfair wca and understand that you will be making reccomendations to the harrigton review and i thank you for it.
but i do not trust this coalition to be fair to anyone.
i hope that under the guise of fairness this government can see that it is unfair to transfer existing ib claimants until the reiview has been implemented.
i was disturbed by the figures that sugested 90% of people where satified with their treatment in the esa/wca assessment as it seems far from the truth, it beggers the question of exactly how many people were questioned for the survey and what where the questions asked, survey must be skewed some way.
-
so pro harrington report is in and has only tinkered at the edges,what should have happened is to scrap the whole wca and start again as there is little difference it still unjust and harsh as before and will be taking entitlement that when working will be taken away for many and many will end up on lower jsa if they can claim it? as if you receive a pension you will problable not be able to claim even that and that will put people with mental health into poverty and we could end up on the streets it is very frightning and what has mind said they welcome prof harrington?
-
The WCA will in fact get worse as the Tories have stated it does not go far enough, it's time all these so called charities get together and make a fight of this, even if these charities lose the money they get from governments.
Charities like Remploy and the Shaw trust who are now more work finders then charities should have the charity status removed .
The WCA medical test has not become the method of telling people your not disabled.
-
A smiling firing squad instead of a frowning firing squad - that's all that's on the cards, not a rewrite of the assessment and halt of anymore until this has been done [and David's good suggestions].
This coalition is determined that everyone will be on JSA in the knowledge that people with psychiatric history will be stuck on 'workfare' forevermore with greater levels of poverty and less service support as they are reconfigured to exclude and time limit.
Discharge is now recovery, having longer term support is now dependency [except those who are forcibly medicated long term, they are exempt from being called dependent]. Voluntary work of your chosing now feels like a dirty word to be hidden from view because it goes against you. The charities need to face up to the reality of using volunteers in receipt of benefits -
Thanks for all of your comments.
We agree that there are still serious concerns around employer discrimination and the introduction of the revised descriptors next year. We will continue to work hard on these issues.
However, it is important to recognise the huge step in the right direction that Professor Harrington's Review represents: many of the criticisms that we have all been levelling at the WCA for years have now been independently validated; substantial recommendations have been made for how these problems can be addressed; and the Government has accepted all of these recommendations.
If fully implemented, the changes will include:
-Experts in mental health and learning disabilities in every test-centre
-Recording of assessments and written justifications for assessor decisions
-DWP Decision Makers who are more confident to challenge Atos
-Wider and better use of additional medical evidence
-Clearer and more frequent communication with the applicantIt is also good news that Professor Harrington is staying on to conduct the second Review and to monitor how well the Government is implementing these recommendations.
We will be closely monitoring the implementation too, but will also be proposing new descriptors and pressing the Government to delay IB migration if the assessment process has not improved by April.
-
Yes - congratulations on getting these changes. They are all good.
But by co operarating like this with the government you make it seem as if you agree with the whole concept of ESA - with workfare and conditionality and threats for people with ill health or disability.
Getting work for them is good. But doing it with threats and sticks is bad. There is no safe place in ESA for people with long term serious conditions to try a little work and still feel safe from increasing pressure which will finally send them to JSA. The whole concept of extending the conditionality to people with disability is unacceptable.
Are you going to fight this for us? Otherwise you do not represent us.
Unless you say clearly to the government that this is wrong - you are aiding and abetting the conditionality.You may be winning small concessions but at the price of losing the battle for people with disability to keep control of their decisions and lives.
I know the government won't like it but telling truth to power is your role if you are representing us. Just say NO.
-
to Tom at MIND
Discrimination should have been addressed before welfare reform. The facts are it will never be addressed, because simply mental illness does not fit in with the
the economic system being pushed in this country which hightlights everyman for himself policies.Employers will never employ the mentally ill. The economy will never cater for those who are unwell. If I am wrong why will MIND not answer the question on
How many does MIND employ with serious mental illness? The discrimination is everywhere including charities, NHS DWP and the other hypocrites who use us for voluntary work and funding.
The problems starts at the top of these organisations, with funding issues..
.Patronised for years and scapegoated., The funding disclosures of last Friday highlighted the embarassment of charities arguing about money with no mention at all about their clients.
I am sure all this will be denied but show us the evidence of employment for serious mental illness. Mental illness has been used for political purposes for the past 25 years. Care in the community was the beginning of the profiteering, and it has gone on from there. Selling hospitals for big houses for the wealthy, private indiviuals charging a fortune for lodgings and Agenda for change that saw huge salary rises for doctors and NHS staff.. Now they are forced to push welfare cuts on to to us.
Within the doctors and staff contracts is a welfare reform agenda. Even the tribunal service is now being lent on with booklets about work..
Slowly the mentally ill our beginning to see what is happening, Many trusted people who represented them and they have been badly let down and the charities are only a part of why this has happened. -
Agree with you Lily, unless everyone takes a firm stand in saying NO it is effectively aiding and abetting.
Totally agree with your analysis Paul. What do you think it will take to change the tide? Is there anything we can do? -
to Mindreader.
Its fanciful disability will be accepted like race, gender etc. Most of these other differences do not mean people function differently.
Health does make a massive difference and it cannot be ignored. of course it is only ignored for BENEFIT cuts to be imposed. everyone else lives in the real world.
The economic system being imposed on everybody in this country does not fit with disability and never will for many especially mental illness.
That difference will INCREASE NOT DECREASE in the future as people are driven into the ground for productivity.....I would scrap this type of stuff Anti Stigma creates more stigma in my view but by devious means like welfare reform.
Scrap the DDA and equalities act, it benefits all but the disabled in so many aspects.Scrap all dislcosure if you want to see the hidden prejudice. Not just on employment, but, car insurance, health insurance, jury service and all the rest THE YOU WILL SEE THE HIDDEN PREJUDICE and much of it will come from the people we are supposed to trust. money is being made out of us, while we lose our benefits.
so in my view the only equality we will achieve is benefit cuts.
Nearly everyone with mental illness will lose out, a few celebrities like Alisatair Campbell etc will benefit and a few
people with mental illness dictating to the rest of us will be paraded as an example.
As for employment if some want to try getting a job well good luck to them for the majority 70 per cent of employers will not go near us..Perhaps others reading this might like to say something different well why not give the argument against what I am saying.Paul
-
Like many other people, I found Mind's summary of Professor Harrington's findings and recommendations encouraging.
I then went on to start reading the report and deeply disheartened to find 'work is good for you' propaganda reiterated throughout the opening pages.
Years ago my brother took his own life largely due to difficulties in his working life and like many people battling with anxiety, mood disorders and other MH conditions, I have personally only managed a chequered career. I have been forced to leave countless jobs due to the detrimental effect they were having on my mental and physical health or because i was unable to cope with the work demands.
I cannot comprehend how Professor Harrington in his foreword failed to acknowledge the fact that work environments can be very stressful places and for many people, particularly those with mental health conditions, a significant contributory or trigger factor in their illness. Or indeed that a large percentage of employers will not employ someone with a mental health condition or poor sickness record.
Harping on about work being good for you is no less simplistic than stating 'work is bad for you' and in the context of this report - extremely insensitive. The reference to the Tribunal Service needing training in the benefits of work is equally inappropriate.
Professor Harrington refers to ''the appallingly harmful effects of worklessness". Does he go on to use this type of rhetoric in describing people's negative experiences of the frightening medical's process or bullying in the workplace for that matter?
I have not felt up to reading the full report yet, but hoping it rapidly focuses on the task in hand of reviewing the ESA process and the over-arching systemic problems.
David above has made valuable suggestions regarding the descriptors which Mind should explore further.
I strongly agree with the recommendations Mind is suggesting we take forward to our MPs. To attempt to migrate IB claimants with long term disabilities, many of whom will face enormous bariers to finding sustainable work, before all positive recommendations have been implemented and monitored, would be irresponsible.
-
Personally the Harrington report is a kick in the guts for all sick and disabled people in Britain.
The LIMA software used by ATOS in the totally unfit for purpose, "work capability assessment" should be more accurately be called Jesus Christ because it cures cancer, makes the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and those with no hands "fit for work" if they can lift a bag of sugar with the stumps of their arms.
(The latter is part of the recently modified LiMA criteria if anyone thinks I am joking.) -
Can't argue with that Paul, you are so right. We need another anti stigma campaign like we need a hole in the head. A am so angry now because the future frightens me. When my benefits are stopped I can look forward to more rejections trying to get work despite my experience, qualifications, and years of voluntary work. All employers will see is MENTAL ILLNESS which will obviously make me a risk to vulnerable people (Effectively banned from NHS, Education, nursing homes etc etc). Basically we are not intelligent people who happen to have an illness we are marked for life and excluded from the most basic right THE RIGHT TO WORK which comes with PAY which comes with HAVING A LIFE. And get this, I will NOT do workfare-and none of us should do it either.
-
Shame on mind YOU failed US and still are, you are funded by the government and you are more interested in your funding and over large
salaries. Had you from the start had the back bone and worked with your members YOU could have stopped this and many people would not have suffered SHAME on YOU. please don't make out you no what l or other need Shame on YOU, THIS review does little atos is still in control it all window dressing SHAME ON YOU -
I'm afraid MIND like other organisations have co-operated too well with the coalition. ESA is a flawed and a deeply destructive benefit, that employs wealthy ATOS executioners to do the dirty work of the government at a great cost to the taxpayer. but more than that it reduces people down to tick boxes and despatches them to poverty and despair. Time for MIND to speak up for the people it represents and for all the sick and disabled in this country, and say not in our name, before we see thouands of vulnerable people on the streets or in institutions or dare i say dead................
-
I agree Paul regarding anti-stigma campaigns, I think they're a waste of money or at the very least then why not use them to counter the media vilification that disabled people have been subject to. Why do antistigma campaigns not address the welfare issue? I guess because it's not exciting enough and celebs don't have these sorts of concerns for themselves. I also agree that disability does not fit this economic system which will in turn create more service users and grind them. Mentalism is so very different from racism and sexism, and no legislation really covers it. I think this coalition actively wants as many disabled people as they can get on JSA/workfare, I also believe there is a class issue here, we're seeing it played out by public schoolboys and peers with their 'breeding' comments
-
I have fibromyalgia syndrome. I am in constant pain, get nauseating headaches every week, am profoundly depressed and anxious because I sleep so badly due to pain. I didn't get a single point in my WCA, and still would not after all the suggested changes. The WCA doesn't need tweaking. It needs scrapping and starting again. Genuinely sick people are being found fit for work and shunted on to JSA to compete with the able bodied for too few jobs. If their partners are working, it won't matter how many years of NI contributions they have made, they will become ineligible for benefits after 6 months. Those with working partners who are found to need help and placed in the WRAG will similarly lose their benefits after 12 months. I have never felt so despondent about the future in my whole life. None of this will change after the Harrington review.
-
I agree with many of the comments and especially that the ESA is still to be rolled in spite of the problems outlined by Harrington especially how mental health is not effectively assessed by the test. Yet although the government are agreeing to this they are still going ahead with the revised descriptors for mental health which are going to make it nearly impossible for anyone with mental health difficulties to pass the WCA.
Why are they not halting these until the new descriptors to be suggested by mental health organisation are in place, if they really are willing to implement them . this is something that needs to be raised and addressed. Also the whole impact of putting conditionality on people with mental health problems has not even been addressed in terms of the detrimental effect they can have on many conditions involving anxiety and obsessive thinking to name a few, sanctions can only be counter-productive
I to am very concerned about doing voluntary work .which I do and it really benefits me but fear that this will mean I am told that this makes me fit for work when all it makes me fit for is just about managing a few hour a week in a situation where there is no sanction if I can't make it and I am not finacially dependant on it which would produce to much stress to be able to cope with it. Harrington has made mention of looking at schemes where if you cannot manage to work more than 15 hours a week you would still be perceived as unfit which seems right. I can't get my head round how 3 hours voluntary work can possibly mean I am capable for full time work as is expected on JSA -
The WCA is still flawed as there is not a "safe" place for people found capable of limited work.
Questions such as "are you able to pick up and put a pen in your breast pocket or "are you able to move a light box" don`t prove that anyone is fit for work if they can do things such as these.
The same goes for "do you watch television",just because someone sits \lies on a comfy sofa with supporting cushions\pillows doesn`t mean that they can sit and work sitting down at a desk/workbench etc.
All sanctions on ESA claimants should be stopped and no cuts in their present benefit rates should be imposed.
It`s hard enough paying to keep warm in the winter months as it is,benefit cuts will make sick and disabled people even more sick and disabled!
In my opinion,the WCA in it`s present form will simply deny many people the benfits that they are entitled to,but it won`t save the govt any money because any saved on benefit payments will be spent on appeal tribunals,of which a big percentage of appellants will win and their benefits backdated!WCA and ESA are both poorly thought out benfit reforms and should be scrapped(along with ATOS) and a FAIR alternative found.
-
If Mind really intends to speak on behalf of those whom it purports to represent, then it needs to stick its head above the parapet and say things the establishment won't like - because, let's face it, the establishment has connived at what certainly seems to be an orchestrated campaign of vilification against disabled people, whatever the nature of their disability.
One thing that would be easy to implement quickly would be an immediate suspension of the use of LiMA, and an equally immediate abandonment of that utterly fallacious idea that the DWP/Atos can arrive at the true answer to any question when they fail to pose it in a manner that truly reflects the relevant statute law.
Let me illustrate this with a short example. My late father had a phobia of frogs; away from these creatures, he gave no sign of this - and why should he? Yet put the case that a DWP assessment needed to test whether a claimant had such a phobia, yet the assessor was forbidden from even mentioning these creatures.
As a result, what would we see? "Not anxious on examination; not depressed on examination; not withdrawn on examination..." Aside from the fact that all of these are "snapshots," and therefore should not appear in any report AT ALL, they utterly fail to address the question posed.
Surely the questions in the relevant statute law should be posed in a straightforward and unambiguous manner, both on the paper form and at the face-to-face assessment; if the examining healthcare professional has reason to believe that the claimant has lied, they can say so IF they can back up any such assertion with real evidence. At present, what emerges is a mishmash of guesswork and assumption, which is totally unacceptable.
Even if one accepts that the "questions behind the questions" can legitimately be omitted from the process - and I contend that they cannot - the continued use of LiMA "tramlines" the process in a wholly unacceptable manner. I worked in computer software for fifteen years, so I can make a pretty good guess at the design philosophy behind this discredited program: it will largely be a binary decision tree, where the response to each (irrelevant) question will prompt the posing of other (irrelevant) questions, while at the same time PREVENTING the posing of a whole series of other questions, with the answers to these being supplied automatically from preset defaults, because "that is the way this illness works" according to the designer of the software.
Yet illness is not like that. A computer program designed in this way would find it difficult to accurately reflect some mythical "textbook case;" it finds it totally impossible to accurately reflect how illnesses of whatever type affect real people, because real people are INDIVIDUALS and no automated system can possibly be flexible enough to recognise the real and severe and above all multifarious ways in which individual persons are affected by nominally the same illness or condition.
To be fair to the DWP, there was a problem with legibility of handwritten forms; yet LiMA is not necessary in order to address this drawback - any word processing package worth its salt could be used to design a suitable form, consisting of certain fields of fixed text and other fields for input by the user. Hey presto, legibility problem solved - probably in little more than a day and at very little cost - while leaving the examining healthcare professional to do the job that they are paid for without being shackled by the inbuilt biases of LiMA.
If Mind really speaks for those in mental distress, they would immediately press for a moratorium on the use of LiMA at least until next year's WCA review, which - I believe - will put the spotlight on this pile of trash. Had I been still active in software analysis, design, or programming, I would never have signed this program off as fit to be used in the field, as it is in its present form wholly unfit for purpose.
-
The thrust of the welfare reforms is conditionality - which is sanctions, threats and mandated work programs. You can argue that for the fit unemployed there is a role for sanctions and forced work programs. The image being promoted is families on sink estates who haven't worked for generations. You can argue that there are cheats in there and these sanctions will find them out. You can argue that there are depressed useless unemployed people failing to shape up and find jobs and sticks will get them to up their game and succeed and be eternally grateful to you. I don't get very much involved in these arguments because fit people can argue for themselves.
I am worried about sick and disabled people and presumably they too come in the form of cheats and people who sticks can threaten in to productive behaviour. But they also come in the form of very vulnerable and challenged people who aren't cheating and are already distressed by physical and mental limitations.
Sick and disabled people have an enormous range of conditions which range from mild and transient to severe and progressive. The idea that you can separate these in to 'can work' and 'can never work' is simplistic. Grey areas all over the place.
The WCA is never going to be able to do this. But in fact it isn't being asked to do this. It is being asked to divide people in to people who will be threatened with sanctions and a few people in the support group who won't be threatened.
Help back to work should be available to every one. So the question which should be discussed is - who is it fair to threaten as part of helping them get back to work. This is a subjective judgement that depends on whether you believe in threats being helpful, whether you think people could be cheating, whether you think threats could destroy someone who is on the edge of coping with a disability. Are threats helpful or dangerous. No test can tell you that either.
The humane position is to say that if you have a serious diagnosis of a long term or progressive condition - you can't be a cheat - and we will give you the dignity and consideration of making your own choices freely and we won't threaten you. You will lose out in the event threats would have worked for you but you will be safe from threats causing you anxiety that makes your condition worse and is unsafe. Most people with disability will choose not to be threatened.
The argument should move on to this question. Is it fair or safe to threaten someone with a severe condition.
-
The main barrier to my regaining my former professional employment is not necessarily "stigma" but the severity of my health problems.
Why can't MIND put their head above the parapet for those with severe conditions like Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder and state that for some of us, not working is actually the better option? It may be that that has been said, because there was some acknowledgement a while back that severe mental illness sufferers would automatically go into the "support group" - but this idea seems to have dropped off the radar. is there any assurance this will happen?
If I had been forced to stay in my last job, I am certain I would be six feet under, as my last breakdown nearly killed me.
I find coping with life hard enough, and the problems of having "more to think about" when I'm working and also not having the time to reflect upon, recognise, or deal with upcoming and worsening warning symptoms just means more breakdowns for me. Although I spent most of my working life in three or more part time jobs to make ends meet, my sole experience of full time work for three years meant two massive breakdowns in that time. Do MIND (and other charities) really believe it is a kindness or a good thing for someone like me (who also has physical problems too) to "go back to work"?!! Or, being put in the WRAG group?
Putting it out there, that one in four people will suffer a mental problem at some point in their lives, does not really help those who are severely and enduringly afflicted to receive any deep understanding of how debilitating their condition actually is.
In a similar vein I stopped receiving Pendulum magazine from the Bipolar Organisation because a regular column was entitled "Working Matters" and was all about "Getting Back to Work". There was little or no discussion of the fear of those of us who cannot work being denied benefits etc.
On a more positive note, the "back to work is good for you mantra" also ignores the fact that some of us have built a number of coping strategies into our lives that working would not allow - eg I try to take regular exercise to maintain my mobility and reduce my manic-depression but if I went "back to work" I would have little time to look after myself in that way. I find tending my garden therapeutic too, but again would not have the time/energy to do so if working (I suffer ME too) and would simply get more and more depressed and frustrated looking at my little paradise turning into a bramble choked jungle.
Some of us have had to change our lives radically to try and cope with our problems. We are the experts not Atos employees.
-
Mind you have done nothing towards Mental Health people in this research but further promote anxiety upon the most vulnerable. I have a rolling history of Mental Health issues and the only way i cope with my illness now is being left alone. Those assessments should be abolished as i for one will NOT attend them. I have went a whole year now with NO main income other than mid rate DLA £247 per month as they have took every thing away from me including my children as a result of all this farse. I took an over dose as a result unfortunatly i survived that overdose. Any Tory MP should consider myself now dangerous. Even the name ESA is harmful to many with Mental Health issues. Do you know what its like to never work agian watch everyone else take ones own kids out at the weekends and yet not have the monies to even put a meal on the table for ones self. MIND you have done nothing in support of those such as myself with Mental Health issues in supporting such assessments.
-
Rhydian Fôn James wrote an excellent article over at the Guardian, explaining why he thinks the Harrington report doesn't go far enough.
I agree with him, I do not believe that the WCT is fit for purpose and I do not believe that a for profit company like ATOS can be trusted to do the right thing by the UKs disabled people.
Link to article :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/25/harrington-report-incapacity-testing-simplistic
-
I have had severe depression over the last 2 years. This has come about following a heart attack and my abilities to manage myself slowly deteriorating . Additional medical complications have come about such as problems with walking due to a childhood injury to my foot which was severed and also due to enlarged prostate glands. The combination of being unable to copy due to my physical injuries had an impact on me and caused me to become overwhelmed and severely depresses and wanting and wishing to end my life. I sought help and my doctor diagnosed me as being depressed and having anxiety and I have been on medications for these in addition to the medications to manage my heart condition which was discovered by having 4 heart attacks.
I seem to be not getting anywhere with my ESA as my medical awarded me with only 12 points which I am now appealing. My DLA has also been turned down due to the ESA medical. I am finding the system is letting me down as it has not provided me with the ability to seek care and help and subsequently have had to cope with my illness. My condition has actually worsened and I am no longer able to walk without pain, breathlessness, and fatigue and have dizzy spells and falls and accidents and forgetfulness even over taking of medications. I do not know what else to do but sure this situation must be wrong if illness and combination of illnesses and physical problems are not viewed holistically. Is there any way I can get more information about this please ? -
Professor Harrington recomends the Decision Makers do what the regulation stated they should do in the first place.For over 2 years claimants have been denied benefit illegally and the review has ignored the fact.
Atos Healthcare have been rewarded for their flawed assessments with a further £300 million contract extension,who is making profit from the sick and disabled?
Atos Healthcare must be removed nothing less will suffice,we can never get a fair and reasonable assessment when the motive is profit. -
http://indusdelta.co.uk/story/announcing_launch_disability_works_uk/5090
While people lose their sickness benefit MIND gets involved in this. Shocking state of affairs, all done in their members interest it will claimed. No wonder donations are down for many charities.
Paul
-
http://yesministerltd.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/disability-works-uk1.pdf
Will MIND inform the DWP with the potential for financial sanctions and threats to Benefits to those services users that do not comply with what MIND tells them to do under the Work Programme?
Paul
Commenting is now closed.